It's not that any of us are surprised, it's that that is the core problem with the construct of the educational system. The system encourages this 'number juicing' through whatever means.

During the course of a class, if as much education is given to each individual possible, then at the end of the class what does the actual grade matter? These grades turn out to be a poor proxy for things like earning, ingenuity, creativity, changing-the-world, or for that matter even grokking the materials. The only thing for which they're (maybe) a valuable proxy is 'how well can this student juice the grade of the next course in the line' -- a question whose answer ultimately adds no value to society.

Schools emphasize the numerical values that represent the 'amount learned', not the actual acquisition of knowledge.

Any college student with the sole goal of learning how to learn & think unfortunately doesn't survive the education system.

I'd be more surprised if even 1% of college students had to goal to learn as much as possible as opposed to get the highest grades possible.